


I Will Walk Through (My Sorrow)

by mihrsuri



Series: Jewish Hotch Series [2]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Jewish, Biracial Character, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Community: purimgifts, F/M, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jewish Character, Reclaiming your Heritage, Unrefridgerating Awesome Women, alternate universe - haley lives, recovery is a process
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 11:26:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13569618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/pseuds/mihrsuri
Summary: He wants to get this right, this whole thing. He wants to find the threads of his history he never wanted to let go of again. And so Aaron Hotchner starts making a list.





	I Will Walk Through (My Sorrow)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Storyteller1358](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storyteller1358/gifts).



> Title is from Phoenix by Molly Sanden.

He will ask Haley if she minds, as they curl together in bed (he still has trouble, with hands and bodies and touches and he knows now he always will but it becomes a little easier to manage the ache every day, every moment) and she smiles and says no, of course not. 

His mother would have adored Haley, if she'd met him. His grandparents would have adored her, would have taught Jack how to throw the afikomen and fed him more pistachio cookies than he could have possibly eaten. 

Hotch does not have that but he can teach Jack about the questions. He can show him the few treasures that John Hotchner did not burn - the Seder plate, a photo album, his grandmother's wedding veil. Little things, things he wishes he knew more of, to answer Jack's questions better, to be able to honour his mother and grandparents. 

(Oh he had paternal grandparents - they were painfully cold and clearly wanted nothing to do with these two children of a wife they had never approved of but when they did they made sure to 'correct' Aaron and Sean any time they 'acted like their mother and embarrassed the family')

In all honesty Hotch had tried to forget - it had become too painful. Sean had done the opposite, had flaunted his difference in the face of their family and their town and it had terrified Hotch because he loved his little brother and Sean, Sean was going to get killed one day. So Aaron Hotchner had tried to become the model Hotchner. The perfect one. The one who was never in trouble. 

(Marrying the theatre kid daughter of a proud Democrat had not been in the Hotchner family plans for Aaron but by that point he'd decided he didn't want their plans. He wasn't going to rock the boat but he didn't want their plans and he no longer cared very much what the town whispered - he and Sean would be gone). 

He'd gone but he'd left so many of the things he'd wanted to keep behind as well and now, now he wants to find them all over again. 

So he collects recipes - slowly and carefully. He finds his grandmother's handwritten recipe for pistachio cookies, a recipe for kibbeh m'Gerraz and one for lamb and rice as well as the haroset and the seder plate. He calls Sean who offers to do the cooking (and brings a well thumbed notebook of handwritten recipes that their grandmother had left him) and he asks the team and he reads all he can. 

Hotch wants to get this right.

**Author's Note:**

> 


End file.
